John Cho on playing a new kind of Asian dad in road-trip dramedy Don't Make Me Go
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You probably know John Cho from the bridge of the Enterprise in Star Trek, but his heart is in indies. "I feel like independent movies are where I've gotten my best roles," says the actor, who has appeared in such adventurous fare as 2018's thriller Searching (set entirely on laptops and smartphones) and the critically lauded Midwestern drama Columbus. "I love the risk-taking that happens."
Cho's latest effort off Hollywood's beaten path is Don't Make Me Go, directed by 29-year-old up-and-comer Hannah Marks. Based on an original screenplay by Vera Herbert (one that made the prestigious 2012 Black List), the film follows a single father, Max (John Cho), who brings his teenage daughter, Wally (Mia Isaac), on a road trip across the country. Hiding his prognosis of fatal bone cancer, Max tries to teach his daughter everything he can as they hit the road to find Wally's estranged mother.
"I finished the script and felt like it was a movie that I would personally watch, so we started there," Cho, 50, shares. With Wally kept in the dark about her father's condition, Don't Make Me Go finds an unlikely but welcome vein of humor: a boldly opinionated teen and her dad cutting loose. "The story is largely about Max putting up a mask and pretending for the sake of his daughter, and trying to have fun," he explains.
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For Cho, keen to the opportunities offered — or not offered — to Asian-Americans, the movie was special. "I have always seen Asian families depicted as very serious, non-loving, and kind of burdened by culture," he says. "This whole movie is him spending time with his daughter and exploring that loving relationship. That was the real attraction for me." The actor remembers his own boyhood as one that hardly fit the mold. "I was an unserious fool, and I became the person I am after I had kids," he shares.
"I think the two of them instantly were so drawn to each other and had such great chemistry that really elevated the film," writer Herbert says of Cho and Isaac, who found an ease through improv, goofing around, and basically doing an actual road trip together. "Getting to know one another by playing games, trivia, singing, asking for bathroom breaks at the wrong time — it was a lot of art imitating life there," Cho says. Director Marks honed their dynamic by having them stick to the script while driving in one direction, and then going off book in the other direction.
The result is something rich and complex: moments of brightness — a karaoke pit stop or Max teaching Wally how to drive — chafing with parental bewilderment and pointed observations about "old people."
Cho credits Marks for mining that authenticity, especially from Isaac. "It's much easier to capture the old guy's life in an authentic way," he says. "But getting Wally's story right would be a crucial piece, and I think Hannah was the right person." Cho says.
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Merely having the chance to explore the psychology of an Asian family is an occasion Cho identifies as rare. While he admits to seeing more progress than he anticipated during his 25 years of work to date (a run that stretches all the way back to the American Pie movies and his 2003 breakout Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle), he knows there's still a long way to go. Cho can remember a time when reading a script meant playing a movie's token Asian character.
"If you were Asian and reading a script, you knew that you could only play a person who would not have another relationship," he says. "And times are changing. I love that we are giving opportunities to one another. I'm hoping the people of Mia's generation just blow it wide open."
Don't Make Me Go premieres July 15 on Amazon Prime Video.
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